Stand alone hand held cellular telephone devices and stand alone hand held position locating devices such as GPS devices are well known in the art. Hand held cellular telephone devices and hand held GPS devices operate in different frequency spectrums and function independently of each other. Typical cellular telephone devices do not have GPS position location mapping function capability and typical hand held GPS position location mapping function devices do not have cellular telephone capability.
There have been attempts in the prior art to combine a stand alone conventional cellular telephone with a separate stand alone GPS position location mapping module to provide a single combined function unit. One such representative device is available from Benefon Oyj, Salo, Finland under the trade name Benefon Track Pro. A disadvantage of such a combination device is the additional expense, bulk and complexity associated with the combination device as compared to a cellular telephone alone may not appeal to a consumer at the time of purchase and/or the consumer may desire to add GPS position location mapping function capability to the cellular phone at a later time. U.S. Pat. No. 5,786,789 discloses a prior art hand held communication device such as shown in FIG. 1 wherein the device 10 includes a position locating function and a cellular telephone function wherein one function is provided by a core module 12 and the second function is provided by an add-on module 14 which module 14 is attached to the device 10 in place of the battery power module 14 located in the position 16. The add-on module may be the battery power module including a built-in GPS unit that is added to the cellular telephone portion or alternatively may be a battery power module with a built-in cellular telephone unit that attaches to the GPS module or may be of other desired battery power module combinations. In any event, the resultant combination is less than desirable because it requires the attachment of an add-on module to provide the additional desired combined cellular telephone and GPS functionalities. The add-on module increases the size and bulk of the combination device. In addition, the appearance and packaging of the device is different than the originally configured cellular telephone and is changed with the addition of the add-on module. Further, the functionality and operation of the add-on module is generally substantially independent from the functionality and operation of the core module.
Another prior art combination is illustrated for example in FIG. 2 and attempts to add or connect a separate GPS module 22 to the base 24 of a cellular telephone 20 to provide a combined cellular telephone and a position location function capability is illustrated for example in FIG. 2. The disadvantage of such a combination is the added weight, size and bulk of the GPS module and cellular telephone combination and the complexity of interfacing the separate operating systems of each and the additional expense of the separate GPS module.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a mobile communication device such as a cellular telephone that provides additional functionalities without the requirement of a separate independent, function specific add-on module that is attached to the cellular telephone to provide the additional functionality.
It would be further desirable to provide a mobile communication device having cellular telephone capability and GPS position location mapping function capability while maintaining substantially the size and appearance of the original by purchased cellular telephone device.